When Did the Exodus Happened According to Experts?

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BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR GROUP

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Deciphering the Exodus: What Historians and Archaeologists Say About Its Timeline

The precise date of the Exodus, as narrated in the Bible, remains one of the most debated topics in biblical archaeology and Egyptology. While the story is central to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, determining an exact historical timeframe for the event has proven elusive due to the lack of direct archaeological evidence and ambiguities in the biblical text.

Different experts have proposed various timelines based on interpretations of biblical chronology, external historical events, and archaeological data.

1. Late Bronze Age (15th Century BCE): Some scholars, using the biblical chronology, place the Exodus around 1450 BCE. 1 Kings 6:1 states that Solomon began building the Temple in Jerusalem 480 years after the Israelites came out of Egypt. Since Solomon's reign is commonly dated to around 970–931 BCE, this would place the Exodus in the mid-15th century BCE. This is often referred to as the "early date."

2. Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age (13th Century BCE): Other scholars advocate for a 13th-century BCE date for the Exodus during the reign of Ramesses II. This is based on several factors:

The city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta, mentioned as a city the Israelites worked on, flourished during the reign of Ramesses II.

The archaeological and socio-political situation in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition aligns better with the biblical conquest narratives.

This timeframe, often called the "late date," is currently more favored among scholars who argue for a historical basis for the Exodus narrative.

3. Alternative Theories: Some scholars, noting the lack of direct evidence for a large-scale migration as described in the Bible, have proposed alternative theories:

The Israelites were already in Canaan and emerged as a distinct group over time, possibly as a socio-political and religious uprising against Canaanite city-states.

The Exodus narrative represents a fusion of several smaller migration and liberation stories over various periods.

4. Archaeological Perspective: Many modern archaeologists note the lack of direct archaeological evidence for the Exodus as described in the Bible. There's currently no conclusive evidence of large-scale Israelite settlements in Egypt or a sudden mass migration into Canaan during any specific period. However, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the debate continues.

5. Symbolic Interpretation: Some theologians and historians see the Exodus narrative not strictly as a historical account but as a foundational and symbolic story crafted to instill a sense of shared identity, destiny, and purpose among the Israelites.

In conclusion, while the Exodus remains a foundational narrative in religious traditions, its exact dating and historical authenticity are debated among experts. Whether viewed as historical reality, symbolic narrative, or a mix of both, its cultural and religious significance is undeniable.

The Assyrian Enslavement of the Hebrews: The Israelites' Struggle in a Foreign Land

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BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR GROUP

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How the Mighty Assyrian Empire Ensnared the Northern Kingdom of Israel: The Forced March of the Hebrews

In the annals of ancient Middle Eastern history, few empires were as formidable and feared as the Assyrians. Their military prowess, coupled with their brutal tactics, allowed them to subjugate numerous peoples and territories. Among the many nations that felt the weight of the Assyrian yoke were the Israelites, or Hebrews, specifically those of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Rise of the Assyrian Empire

Originating from the city of Assur in present-day northern Iraq, the Assyrians expanded their empire aggressively during the 1st millennium BCE. By the 8th century BCE, under kings like Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V, the empire had reached the zenith of its territorial ambitions, stretching from modern-day Iran to Egypt.

The Fall of the Northern Kingdom

The Northern Kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Samaria, first became a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III. Israel's King Menahem paid heavy tribute to avoid a full-scale invasion. However, subsequent kings of Israel, such as Pekah, sought to rebel and form coalitions with other states to resist Assyrian dominance.

These rebellions did not bode well for Israel. Shalmaneser V initiated a siege of Samaria in 725 BCE that lasted three years. His successor, Sargon II, eventually captured the city in 722 BCE, marking the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Deportation and Assyrian Policy

The Assyrians had a well-established policy when dealing with conquered peoples: mass deportation. After capturing Samaria, Sargon II deported a significant portion of the Israelite population—estimates suggest around 27,000, though the exact number may have been higher—and resettled them in various regions of the Assyrian Empire. This was done to quell any future rebellions and to integrate the conquered populace into Assyrian society.

These deportations effectively dispersed the ten northern tribes of Israel, leading to their historical moniker as the "Lost Tribes of Israel."

Consuming labor in the Assyrian heartland.

From The New York Public Library

Legacy and Implications

The Assyrian conquest had profound implications for the Hebrew people.

1. Cultural and Religious Evolution: The Israelites in exile encountered various cultures, leading to an exchange of ideas and beliefs. While many maintained their distinct identities, others assimilated into Assyrian society.

2. The Emergence of the Southern Kingdom: With the Northern Kingdom obliterated, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, became the primary Hebrew state. This geopolitical shift intensified the centralization of religious practices around the Temple in Jerusalem.

3. Historical and Biblical Significance: The Assyrian exile is referenced in various biblical texts, including the Books of Kings and Chronicles. The prophets of the time, like Hosea and Isaiah, also provided insights, often interpreting the exile as divine punishment for Israel's sins.

Is this the first known deportation of Hebrew people in history?

The Assyrian deportation of the Israelites from the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE is not the first known instance of Hebrews being displaced or facing subjugation. However, it is among the most significant due to its scale and long-term implications.

Earlier interactions between the Hebrews and other empires resulted in some levels of subjugation, tributary status, or displacement. Notably:

1. Egypt: According to the biblical narrative, the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt for several centuries before Moses led them out in the Exodus. This account from the Book of Exodus tells of the Israelites' oppression, their eventual liberation, and their journey to the Promised Land. While the Exodus story is foundational for Jewish religious identity, concrete historical evidence for this enslavement and subsequent exodus is sparse and remains a topic of debate among archaeologists and historians.

2. Local Canaanite and Philistine Powers: After settling in Canaan, the emerging Israelite confederation often clashed with neighboring city-states and groups. The biblical Book of Judges recounts cycles of subjugation by neighboring powers, including the Moabites, Midianites, and Philistines, followed by periods of liberation led by various judges.

However, the Assyrian deportation is unique because of its scale and its lasting effect on the cultural and geopolitical landscape of the region. It resulted in the widespread displacement of ten of Israel's twelve tribes, leading to their historical designation as the "Lost Tribes of Israel."

The Assyrian enslavement and deportation of the Israelites from the Northern Kingdom is a testament to the tumultuous and interconnected histories of ancient Middle Eastern civilizations. While the Northern Kingdom of Israel ceased to exist politically, its cultural and religious legacy persisted, contributing significantly to the tapestry of ancient Semitic traditions and beliefs.

Between Myth and Reality: The Hebrews' Enslavement by the Egyptians

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BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR GROUP

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The Prehistoric Saga of Hebrew Enslavement: Myths, Facts, and Interpretations

The story of the Hebrews' enslavement in ancient Egypt is one of the best-known episodes from the Bible. For many, it serves as a testament to perseverance, faith, and the ultimate triumph of the oppressed over their oppressors. But beyond religious texts, what do we truly know about the initial subjugation of the Hebrews in prehistoric times? This article delves into the origins of the Hebrew enslavement, examining both religious accounts and what historical evidence can offer.

Biblical Account: From Famine to Enslavement

According to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, the initial connection between the Hebrews and Egypt began with Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob (later named Israel). Sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, Joseph eventually rose to prominence in Egypt due to his ability to interpret dreams. He foresaw a seven-year famine and advised Pharaoh on measures to prepare for it. Grateful, Pharaoh elevated Joseph to a high-ranking position, and during the famine, Joseph's family migrated to Egypt for sustenance.

For a time, the Hebrews prospered and multiplied in Egypt. However, as the Book of Exodus recounts, a new Pharaoh came to power "who did not know Joseph." Fearing the growing Hebrew population, he enslaved them, marking the beginning of several centuries of bondage.

Historical Evidence and Debates

While the biblical story is rich in detail, its historical accuracy has been the subject of debate among archaeologists and historians. There are several points of contention:

1. Chronology: Determining the exact timeline of Hebrew enslavement is challenging. Different scholars place the Exodus (the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt) at different periods, ranging from the Middle Kingdom to the New Kingdom.

2. Archaeological Records: Direct archaeological evidence linking the Hebrews to ancient Egypt during the said period of enslavement is scant. There are no Egyptian records that clearly document the enslavement of a people identifiable as the Hebrews.

3. City of Ramses: The Bible mentions that the enslaved Hebrews built the store cities of Pithom and Ramses. Some associate the mention of Ramses with Pharaoh Ramesses II, suggesting a New Kingdom timeline for the enslavement. However, no archaeological evidence directly supports this claim.

4. Semites in Egypt: There's evidence of Semitic peoples in ancient Egypt working in various capacities, including labor. The Brooklyn Papyrus, for instance, lists several Semitic slaves in Egypt. However, whether these were Hebrews or another Semitic group is not specified.

The Evolution of the Narrative

The story of the Hebrew enslavement and the Exodus has evolved over time, with religious, philosophical, and cultural interpretations layering upon the original tale. For believers, the story serves as a testament to divine intervention and the idea that faith and righteousness will ultimately lead to deliverance. Philosophically, it touches upon themes of freedom, resistance against oppression, and the quest for a promised land or a better life.

The enslavement of the Hebrews in prehistoric times, as described in biblical texts, remains one of the most potent narratives in human history. While its historical accuracy might be debated, its cultural and religious significance is undeniable. The story transcends its religious roots, offering timeless lessons on hope, faith, and liberation.

The Idalion Bilingual: A Keystone in Deciphering the Cypriot Syllabary

BY DIMOSTHENIS VASILOUDIS

In the realm of archaeology, some artifacts hold the key to unlocking hidden aspects of our past. The Idalion Bilingual, a small yet significant inscription discovered in Cyprus, is one such artifact. It played a pivotal role in deciphering the Cypriot syllabary, enabling researchers to unravel the linguistic threads of ancient Cypriot society.

Discovery of The Idalion Bilingual

The Cypriot syllabic script was deciphered in the 19th century (in 1870), by G. Smith. The reason was the Phoenician-Cypriot bilingual inscription found in Idalion. It was the key to the decipherment of the Cypriot syllabary, in the manner of the Rosetta Stone for hieroglyphs.

Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1872), numismatist Johannes Brandis (1873), philologist Moritz Schmidt, Wilhelm Deecke, Justus Siegismund (1874), and linguist H.L. Ahrens (1876) also contributed to the decipherment.

The Idalion Bilingual, found in the ancient city of Idalion, is an inscription that bears the same text in two different scripts. It was uncovered during excavations conducted in the 19th century, amidst the remains of the once prosperous city. The script on one side is in the well-known ancient Phoenician alphabet, while the other side is inscribed with the then-undeciphered Cypriot syllabary.

It was discovered by Robert Hamilton Lang in his excavations at the Temple of Idalium (modern Dali, Cyprus), whose work there had been inspired by the discovery of the Idalion Tablet in 1850. The stone was found in the centre of the temple, together with the five other Idalion Temple inscriptions. The stone is thought to have been a pedestal for a statue, as there is an apparent dowel hole in the top.

Lang wrote of his discovery:

The most valuable monument uncovered by my excavations is unquestionably the bilingual inscription in Cyprian and Phoenician, engraved on marble; an inscription which, I feel confident, will ultimately prove the means of enabling philologists to decipher the Cyprian alphabet ... The bilingual inscription proves also that, the two alphabets, Phoenician and Cyprian, had a contemporaneous existence.

It is currently in the archives of the British Museum, with identification number 125320.

 

Cracking the Code: Deciphering the Cypriot Syllabary

The Cypriot syllabary is an ancient script that was used in Cyprus from the 11th to the 4th centuries BC. Until the discovery of the Idalion Bilingual, the syllabary remained a mystery, its signs and symbols inscrutable to researchers.

The value of the Idalion Bilingual lies in its nature as a bilingual text. This meant that scholars could use the known Phoenician inscription to interpret the corresponding text in the unknown Cypriot syllabary, creating an invaluable linguistic bridge between the two scripts.

The decipherment process relied on recognizing that the same message was inscribed in both scripts, even though they appeared quite different. Researchers carefully matched up corresponding words and phrases from both inscriptions, leading to the identification of the phonetic values of the signs of the Cypriot syllabary. The decoding was a significant breakthrough, revealing the ancient script's structure and linguistic characteristics.

The Implications of Decipherment

The successful decipherment of the Cypriot syllabary, aided by the Idalion Bilingual, brought about profound implications for the study of ancient Cypriot history and culture. It opened a new window into the socio-political, economic, and cultural life of ancient Cyprus, as researchers could now read and interpret a multitude of inscriptions found across the island.

Through these texts, scholars have gained insights into the religious practices, administrative systems, and economic activities of ancient Cypriot society. Moreover, the knowledge of the Cypriot syllabary has shed light on the linguistic evolution of the region, tracing the roots and influences of the Greek language in Cyprus.

Description of the block; base, and votive offering that carries the bilingual inscription

The maximum width and depth of the stone are preserved, but the upper front surface of the stone is damaged on both the top left and especially at the top right and along the right side, where the beginning of both the Phoenician and the Greek texts are missing. The top of the base is also damaged, though the maximum preserved height in the middle appears to represent more or less the top of the base; however, the surface at the front looks like it has been hacked or chiseled, perhaps to remove the statue (if this had been made of metal), so there may have been some loss of the original height.

At the back left of the top surface is a deep oval trough, probably for securing the statue mentioned in the inscription; again, this is likely to have been mutilated in order to remove any metal. There are no corresponding holes on the right side or elsewhere on the top surface, though the top right is particularly damaged. The back of the pedestal is roughly chiseled but not broken in the way that the top has been mutilated, suggesting that this is the original surface; the rough finish suggests that it was not meant to be seen and was probably placed against a wall or another pedestal when originally erected.

The Phoenician text consists of three lines, written right to left (sinistrograde), but is incomplete on both sides. The Cypro-Syllabic text occupies four lines, also sinistrograde, of which the beginning of the first three lines are also incomplete, but are fully preserved on the left side.

Inscriptions

In Conclusion: The Power of the Idalion Bilingual

The decipherment of the Cypriot syllabary, facilitated by the Idalion Bilingual, underscores the power of archeology in understanding our past. This modest artifact became a pivotal key to unlocking a centuries-old script, providing valuable insights into a fascinating civilization that existed over two millennia ago.

The Idalion Bilingual stands as a potent symbol of the interconnectedness of human societies, highlighting how the decoding of a language can dramatically widen our understanding of the human experience. It is a testament to the rich tapestry of human civilization, inviting us to continually probe, explore, and appreciate our shared heritage.

How Alexander became a Jewish Name?

By Yehuda Shurpin, Chabad.org

Original title: Why Is Alexander a Jewish Name?

Throughout history, Jews have been careful to retain their distinctly Jewish names. In fact, our sages tell us that although more than two centuries of exile and slavery in Egypt had all but assimilated the Children of Israel into the idolatrous society of Egypt, one of the reasons why they merited their miraculous redemption was that they retained their Jewish names.1

Traditionally, Jewish names are Hebrew, Yiddish or Ladino. Some other names that have crept in over the years and have become accepted as Jewish names are actually translations of Jewish names in foreign languages.

The name Alexander, however, is unique. It originates from the Greek king Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedonia, who established the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen. In other words, its origin is definitely not Jewish.

Another difference: When names of non-Hebrew origin are written in Hebrew documents, such as a bill of divorce, there is a specific style of spelling used. Alexander, however, is spelled according to the Hebrew rules.2

How did Alexander gain such a special place in Jewish nomenclature?

Simeon the Just and Alexander the Great

The following is recorded in the Talmud3 and Megillat Ta’anit:4

On the 21st Kislev5 of the year 3448 from creation (313 BCE), after Alexander the Great brought an end to Persian rule and marched through the Land of Israel, the Kutheans, bitter enemies of the Jewish people, convinced Alexander that the Jews rebelled against his sovereignty and that their Holy Temple in Jerusalem should be destroyed.

Alexander marched on toward Jerusalem at the head of his army. Hearing of this, Shimon HaTzaddik (Simeon the Just), who was then the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) and one of the last remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly, donned the priestly vestments and went to greet Alexander, along with a delegation of Jewish dignitaries bearing torches.

The two groups walked toward each other all night. When dawn arrived, Alexander asked the Kutheans, “Who are these people coming to meet us?”

They said to him, “These are the Jews, who have rebelled against you!”

The two camps met each other at Antipatris. When Alexander saw Shimon HaTzaddik, he descended from his chariot and bowed before him.

“Should a great king such as yourself bow to this Jew?” asked the members of his entourage.

“I do this,” he replied, “because the image of this man’s face appears before me and leads me to victory when I am on the battlefields.”

Alexander then asked the representatives of the Jewish people why they had come to him.

“Is it possible,” they replied, “that gentiles will try to mislead you into destroying the Temple, in which we pray for you and that your kingdom not be destroyed, and we should remain silent and not tell you!?”

“Who are these people who want to destroy it?” asked Alexander.

“They are these very Kutheans who stand before you,” replied the Jews.

“If so,” said the king, “they are given into your hands to deal with as you please.”

The Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, plowing the area and sowing it with leeks (as a sign of complete destruction), just as they sought to do to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

The description of this encounter in traditional Jewish sources stops here. However, In the Sefer Yosippon,6 another crucial part of the story is added:

Shimon HaTzaddik then took Alexander the Great on a tour of the Holy Temple. Alexander, impressed, wished to donate gold to have an image of himself placed in the Holy Temple so that he would be immortalized. Shimon demurred, saying that it was forbidden for the Jews to have graven images, and certainly not in the Temple. He suggested that he instead give the gold to the poor. And as for memorializing the occasion, Shimon suggested an even better way: all male kohanim born that year would be named “Alexander.”

Alexander liked the idea, and the Jews, who were very thankful to Alexander for all that he did for them, including sparing the Holy Temple from destruction, gratefully named their children after him. Thus, the name Alexander forever became a Jewish name.

FOOTNOTES

1.See Midrash Vayikra Rabbah 32.

2.Igrot Moshe, Orach Chaim, vol. 4:66 & vol. 5:10.

3.Talmud, Yoma 69a.

4.Megillat Ta’anit, ch. 9.

5.This follows the date in Megillat Taanit. The Talmud records it as 25 Tevet.

6.Sefer Yosippon, ch. 10. (Not to be confused with Josephus. There is much discussion about the authorship of Yosippon and whether it is, in fact, Josephus. However, that is beyond the scope of our discussion.) In Antiquities of the Jews, book 11:8, Josephus mentions Alexander’s visit to the Temple, but does not mention the part about the priests being named after him.

By Yehuda Shurpin

The History of Writing; Tracing the Development of expressing Language by Systems of Markings

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by dimosthenis vasiloudis

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Protowriting, ideographic systems, or early mnemonic symbols came before more advanced writing systems in the evolution of writing in human societies (symbols or letters that make remembering them easier).

A subsequent development is true writing, in which the content of a spoken language is encoded so that another reader may reasonably reconstruct the identical utterance written down. It differs from proto-writing, which frequently forgoes recording grammatical words and affixes, making it harder or even impossible to reassemble the precise meaning intended by the writer unless a substantial amount of context is already known in advance.

Writing innovations

The idea that writing originated in a single civilization and was called "monogenesis" persisted for a long time. According to academics, all writing originated in Mesopotamia's ancient Sumer and spread around the world as a result of cultural diffusion. This argument holds that traders or merchants traveling between geographical locations passed on the idea of representing language by written signs, though perhaps not necessarily the specifics of how such a system operated.

The finding of ancient Mesoamerican scripts, far from Middle Eastern sources, demonstrated, however, that writing had been created more than once. In at least four ancient civilizations, including Mesopotamia (between 3400 and 3100 BCE), Egypt (about 3250 BCE), China (1200 BCE), and lowland portions of southern Mexico and Guatemala, writing may have independently originated (by 500 BCE).

Some academics have suggested that ancient Egypt "The earliest authentic examples of Egyptian writing differ from Mesopotamian writing in both structure and style, indicating that they must have emerged independently. Although there is still a chance that Mesopotamian "stimulus dispersion" occurred, the influence could not have extended beyond the dissemination of an idea."

Because there is no evidence of communication between ancient China and the Near Eastern literate civilizations, as well as because Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches to phonetic representation differ, it is thought that ancient Chinese characters are independent creations.

The Vinča symbols.

The Rongorongo script of Easter Island, the Vina symbols from about 5500 BCE, and the Indus script of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization are all controversial. Since none have been translated, it is unclear if they all represent real writing, protowriting, or something entirely different.

The earliest coherent texts date from around 2600 BCE, and Sumerian archaic (pre-cuneiform) writing and Egyptian hieroglyphs are usually regarded as the earliest authentic writing systems. Both developed out of their ancestors' proto-literate symbol systems between 3400 and 3100 BCE. The Proto-Elamite script belongs to roughly the same time frame.

writing methods

Writing systems are distinct from symbolic communication systems. For most writing systems, reading a text requires some knowledge of the spoken language that goes along with it. In contrast, it's not always necessary to have a prior understanding of a spoken language to use symbolic systems like information signs, paintings, maps, and mathematics. Every human group has its own language, which is thought by many to be a natural and essential aspect of mankind.

Writing system development has been intermittent, uneven, and delayed, and old oral communication systems have only been partially replaced. Writing systems generally develop more slowly after they are formed than their spoken counterparts and frequently preserve traits and idioms that have been lost to the spoken language.

Three writing standards are thought to apply to all writing systems. First, writing must be comprehensive; it must have a meaning or purpose, and it must make a point or be able to convey that message. Second, whether they are physical or digital, all writing systems must include some kind of symbol that can be created on a surface. In order to facilitate communication, the writing system's symbols must resemble spoken words or speech.

The greatest advantage of writing is that it gives society a way to regularly and thoroughly preserve information—something that the spoken word could not previously do as successfully. Writing enables communities to communicate knowledge, transmit information, and

stages of development

Sumer

An ancient civilization of southern Mesopotamia, is believed to be the place where written language was first invented around 3200 BCE.

Beginning with the Neolithic pottery phase, when clay tokens were used to keep track of particular quantities of animals or other goods, writing first appeared. These tokens were initially imprinted on the exterior of spherical clay envelopes, which were later used to keep them. Afterwards, flat tablets were gradually introduced in place of the tokens, and signs were recorded using a stylus. Towards the end of the fourth millennium BCE, Uruk was where actual writing was first discovered. Other areas of the Near East quickly followed.

The earliest recorded account of the development of writing is found in a poem from ancient Mesopotamia:

The Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote on it like a tablet because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat the message. It has never been possible to write on clay before.

Enmerkar and the King of Aratta, a Sumerian epic written around 1800 BCE

Although there is agreement among scholars as to the difference between prehistory and the history of early writing, there is disagreement as to when proto-writing became "real writing." The criteria are somewhat arbitrary. In the broadest sense, writing is a way of keeping track of information. It is made up of graphemes, which in turn can be made up of glyphs.

Many centuries of shattered inscriptions typically follow the advent of writing in a particular region. The presence of coherent texts in a culture's writing system is how historians determine a culture's "historicity".

Standard reconstruction of the development of writing. There is a possibility that the Egyptian script was invented independently from the Mesopotamian script.

A conventional "proto-writing to true writing" system follows a general series of developmental stages:

Picture writing system: glyphs (simplified pictures) directly represent objects and concepts. In connection with this, the following substages may be distinguished:

• Mnemonic: glyphs primarily as a reminder.

• Pictographic: glyphs directly represent an object or a concept such as (A) chronological, (B) notices, (C) communications, (D) totems, titles, and names, (E) religious, (F) customs, (G) historical, and (H) biographical.

• Ideographic: graphemes are abstract symbols that directly represent an idea or concept.

Pre-cuneiform tags, with drawing of goat or sheep and number (probably "10"): "Ten goats", Al-Hasakah, 3300–3100 BCE, Uruk culture.

Transitional system: graphemes refer not only to the object or idea that it represents but to its name as well.

• Phonetic system: graphemes refer to sounds or spoken symbols, and the form of the grapheme is not related to its meanings. This resolves itself into the following substages:

• Verbal: grapheme (logogram) represents a whole word.

• Syllabic: grapheme represents a syllable.

• Alphabetic: grapheme represents an elementary sound.

Designs on some of the labels or token from Abydos, carbon-dated to circa 3400–3200 BC and among the earliest form of writing in Egypt. They are remarkably similar to contemporary clay tags from Uruk, Mesopotamia.

The best known picture writing system of ideographic or early mnemonic symbols are:

• Jiahu symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, c. 6600 BCE

• Vinča symbols (Tărtăria tablets), c. 5300 BCE[24]

• Early Indus script, c. 3100 BCE

In the Old World, true writing systems developed from neolithic writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium BC).

Locations and timeframes

Comparative evolution

from pictograms to abstract shapes, in Mesopotamian cuneiforms, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters

Proto-writing

The first writing systems of the Early Bronze Age were not a sudden invention. Rather, they were a development based on earlier traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as proper writing, but have many of the characteristics of writing. These systems may be described as "proto-writing". They used ideographic or early mnemonic symbols to convey information, but it probably directly contained no natural language. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC, and include:

• The Jiahu symbols found carved in tortoise shells in 24 Neolithic graves excavated at Jiahu, Henan province, northern China, with radiocarbon dates from the 7th millennium BCE. Most archaeologists consider these not directly linked to the earliest true writing.

• Vinča symbols, sometimes called the "Danube script", are a set of symbols found on Neolithic era (6th to 5th millennia BCE) artifacts from the Vinča culture of Central Europe and Southeast Europe.

• The Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium may also be an example of proto-writing.

• The Indus script, which from 3500 BCE to 1900 BCE was used for extremely short inscriptions.

The Dispilio Tablet

The Dispilio tablet is a wooden tablet bearing inscribed markings, unearthed during George Hourmouziadis's excavations of Dispilio in Greece, and carbon 14-dated to 5202 (± 123) BC.

It was discovered in 1993 in a Neolithic lakeshore settlement that occupied an artificial island near the modern village of Dispilio on Lake Kastoria in Kastoria, Western Macedonia, Greece.

Even after the Neolithic, a number of societies used proto-writing as a transitional form before adopting formal writing. Such a mechanism might have existed in the quipu of the Incas (15th century CE), often known as "talking knots". Another example is the pictographs created by Uyaquk before the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language developed the Yugtun syllabary around 1900.

Ancient writing

The Bronze Age saw the development of writing in a wide range of cultures. Indus script, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cretan hieroglyphs, Chinese logographs, Sumerian cuneiform writing, and the Olmec script of Mesoamerica are a few examples. Around 1600 BCE, the Chinese script most likely evolved apart from the Middle Eastern scripts. It is also generally accepted that the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems, which include the Olmec and Maya scripts, had separate origins. In 2000 BCE, it is believed that the first real alphabetic writing was created for Hebrew laborers in the Sinai by assigning Semitic values to mostly Egyptian hieratic characters (see History of the alphabet and Proto-Sinaitic alphabet).

Ethiopia's Geez writing system is regarded as Semitic. With roots in the Meroitic Sudanese ideogram system, it is most likely of semi-independent origin. The majority of alphabets used today are either direct descendants of this one invention, many through the Phoenician alphabet, or were designed in direct response to it. The early Old Italic alphabet and Plautus (c. 750–250 BCE) were separated by around 500 years in Italy, while the Elder Futhark inscriptions and early works like the Abrogans (c. 200–750 CE) are separated by a similar amount of time in the case of the Germanic peoples.

Cuneiform writing

The first Sumerian script was derived from a system of clay tokens used to denote different types of goods. This had developed into a system of keeping accounts by the end of the fourth millennium BC, utilizing a stylus with a circular form that was impressed into soft clay at various angles to record numbers. A pointed stylus was used to gradually add pictographic lettering on this to show what was being counted. Writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the name "cuneiform") began to include phonetic features by the 29th century BCE and gradually replaced writing with a round stylus and a sharp stylus by about 2700–2500 BCE.

Cuneiform first started to represent Sumerian syllables around 2600 BCE. Ultimately, cuneiform writing evolved into a general-purpose system for writing numerals, syllables, and logograms. This alphabet was adapted to the Akkadian language starting in the 26th century BCE, and from there to others like Hurrian and Hittite. This writing system resembles Old Persian and Ugaritic scripts in appearance.

Hieroglyphics from Egypt

Literacy was concentrated among a well-educated elite of scribes, who played a crucial role in upholding the Egyptian empire through writing. To become scribes in the employ of temple, royal (pharaonic), and military authority, one had to come from a certain background.

According to Geoffrey Sampson, the general concept of expressing words from a language in writing was likely transmitted to Egypt via Sumerian Mesopotamia. Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into being a little after Sumerian script, and, possibly [were], invented under the influence of the latter." Despite the significance of early Egypt-Mesopotamia links, "no definitive judgment has been established as to the genesis of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt" due to the lack of direct evidence. However, it is stated and agreed upon that "a very compelling argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt" and that "the evidence for such direct influence remains fragile."

Egyptian writing does suddenly appear at that time, but Mesopotamia has an evolutionary history of sign usage in tokens dating back to around 8000 BCE. Since the 1990s, discoveries of glyphs at Abydos, dated to between 3400 and 3200 BCE, may challenge the conventional idea that the Mesopotamian symbol system predates the Egyptian one. These glyphs were discovered in tomb U-J at Abydos; they were written on ivory and most likely served as labels for other items discovered there.

Even though he acknowledged that Egypt's geographic location made it a receptacle for many influences, Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar maintained that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols originated from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African" and that in regards to writing, "we have seen that a purely Nilotic, therefore African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality."

Elamite writing

The unintelligible Proto-Elamite writing first appears around 3100 BCE. Around the latter third millennium, it is thought to have evolved into Linear Elamite, which was later supplanted by Elamite Cuneiform, which was adapted from Akkadian.

Indus script

Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constituted a writing system used to record the as yet unidentified language(s) of the Indus Valley civilisation.

The Indus script has been assigned to markings and symbols discovered at numerous Indus Valley civilization sites due to the hypothesis that they were used to transcribe the Harappan language. It is disputed whether the script, which was in use from roughly 3500 to 1900 BCE, is a Bronze Age writing script (logographic-syllabic) or merely proto-writing symbols. According to analysis, it was written in boustrophedon or from right to left.

early SEMITIC ALPHABETS

Around 1800 BCE in Ancient Egypt, the first "abjads," which mapped individual symbols to individual phonemes but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol, appeared as a representation of the language created there by Semitic workers. However, by that time, alphabetic principles had only a remote chance of being ingrained into Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium.

Did the Proto-Canaanite alphabet take its symbols independently of the hieroglyphs?

It is only until the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script separates into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (c. 1400 BCE), Byblos syllabary, and the South Arabian alphabet (c. 1200 BCE). These early abjads remained of minor significance for several decades. The untranslated Byblos syllabary most likely had some influence on the Proto-Canaanite, which in turn provided inspiration for the Ugaritic alphabet (c. 1300 BCE).

Anatolian hieroglyphs

The Hieroglyphic Luwian language was written down using Anatolian hieroglyphs, a native hieroglyphic script found in western Anatolia. Around the fourteenth century BCE, it initially appeared on royal seals of the Luwians.

Chinese characters

The corpus of inscriptions on oracle bones and brass from the late Shang dynasty is the earliest authenticated example of the Chinese script that has been found so far. The oldest of these is believed to date from about 1200 BCE.

There have been recent finds of tortoise-shell carvings from around 6000 BCE, such as Jiahu Script and Banpo Script, but it is debatable whether or not the carvings are complex enough to be considered writing. 3,172 cliff carvings from the period between 6000 and 5000 BCE have been found near Damaidi in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. They contain 8,453 different characters, including images of the sun, moon, stars, gods, and scenes of grazing or hunting.

Replica

of ancient Chinese script on an oracle turtle shell

These pictographs are thought to resemble the first Chinese characters that have been confirmed to be written. Writing in China would predate Mesopotamian cuneiform, traditionally recognized as the first manifestation of writing, by about 2,000 years if it were to be considered a written language. However, it is more likely that the inscriptions represent a type of proto-writing, comparable to the modern European Vinca script.

Early Greek and Cretan scripts

Cretan relics include hieroglyphic writing (early-to-mid-2nd millennium BCE, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). The Mycenaean Greek writing system, Linear B, has been decoded, but Linear A has not yet been. The three overlapping, but distinct, writing systems can be categorized according to their chronological order and geographic distribution as follows:

• Cretan Hieroglyphic / Crete (eastward from the Knossos-Phaistos axis) / c. 2100−1700 BCE

• Linear A / Crete (except extreme southwest), Aegean Islands (Kea, Kythera, Melos, Thera), Greek mainland (Laconia) and west Minor Asia (Miletus and maybe Troy) / c. 1800−1450 BCE

• Linear B / Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns) / c. 1450−1200 BCE

The archaeological finds with signs of pre-alphabetic scripts in the Aegean

(Up) The finds with signs of Linear B script reach about 6,000 and constitute the majority of the pre-alphabetic written monuments of the Aegean.

(Middle) About 1,400 are the finds which imprint Linear A and make up a 11% of all pre-alphabetic inscriptions.

(Down) Cretan hieroglyphics occupies 2% of the available finds with only 400 finds.

Illustration: Dimosthenis Vasiloudis

Mesoamerica

The Cascajal Block, a stone slab with 3,000-year-old writing that predates the first Zapotec writing from around 500 BCE, was found in the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is an example of the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere.

Stela 12 and 13

from the southern end of Building L, in the Zapotec city of Monte Albán, Outside of Oaxaca, Mexico.

The Maya script is one of numerous pre-Columbian scripts found in Mesoamerica, and it appears to have been the most well-developed and extensively deciphered. The earliest clearly identifiable Maya inscriptions date to the third century BCE, and writing continued to be used until just before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century BCE. A combination of logograms and syllabic symbols, utilized in Maya writing, is somewhat reminiscent of current Japanese writing.

IRON AGE WRITING

The Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which was used into the Iron Age, is all that the Phoenician alphabet is (conventionally taken from a cut-off date of 1050 BCE). The Greek and Aramaic alphabets were derived from this alphabet. They eventually gave rise to the writing systems that are currently used everywhere from Western Asia to Africa and Europe. The Greek alphabet, on the other hand, was the first to use specific symbols to represent vowel sounds.

By Matt Baker

In the first centuries of the Common Era, the Greek and Latin alphabets gave rise to a number of European scripts, including the Runes, Gothic, and Cyrillic alphabets, while the Aramaic alphabet developed into the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac abjads, the latter of which spread as far as Mongolian script. The Ge'ez abugida originated from the South Arabian alphabet. According to some academics, the Indian Brahmic family also descended from the Aramaic alphabet.

GRAKLIANI HILL WRITING

At Georgia's Grakliani Hill, behind a fallen altar from a temple dedicated to a fertility goddess from the seventh century BCE, an obscure script was uncovered in 2015. Grakliani's other temples' inscriptions, which depict animals, people, or decorative features, are different from these ones. Although its letters are rumored to be connected to ancient Greek and Aramaic, the script has no similarities to any known alphabet. In contrast, the earliest Armenian and Georgian letters come from the fifth century CE, right after the respective nations converted to Christianity. The inscription looks to be the oldest local alphabet ever uncovered in the entire Caucasus region. An portion of the inscription measuring 31 by 3 inches had been unearthed by September 2015.

Grakliani script on the basement of altar of goddess of fertility (XI-X c. BC)

Vakhtang Licheli, director of the State University's Institute of Archaeology, claims that "The writings on the temple's two altars have been kept in remarkably good condition. While the pedestal of the second altar is entirely covered with writings, the first altar has few clay letters carved into it." Unpaid students made the discovery. Inscriptions from Grakliani Hill were sent to Miami Laboratory in 2016 for beta analytic radiocarbon dating, which revealed that they were created between c. 1005 and c. 950 BCE.

WRITING IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician script for use with their own language in the early eighth century BCE, the history of the Greek alphabet officially began. The Greek and Phoenician alphabets share a lot of similarities in terms of their characters, and both alphabets nowadays are written in the same order. The Phoenician system's adapter(s) added three letters to the conclusion of the series, known as the "supplementals." The Greek alphabet evolved into a number of different forms.

Early Greek alphabet on pottery in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens

One was utilized in southern Italy and west of Athens and is known as Western Greek or Chalcidian. The other variant, known as Eastern Greek, was spoken by the Athenians and in modern-day Turkey before spreading over the rest of the Greek-speaking world. The Greeks initially elected to write like the Phoenicians, from right to left, but subsequently switched to left to right. The lines would then alternately read from left to right, then from right to left, and so on. On occasion, though, the writer would begin the next line where the preceding one ended. Up until the sixth century, this style of writing, called "boustrophedon," mirrored the course of an ox-drawn plough.

Italic scripts and Latin

Cippus Perusinus

Etruscan writing near Perugia, Italy, the precursor of the Latin alphabet

All of the contemporary European scripts have their roots in Greek. The Latin alphabet, named after the Latins, a central Italian people who came to rule Europe with the emergence of Rome, is the most widely used descendant of the Greek script. Around the fifth century BCE, the Etruscan civilization, which employed a multitude of Italic scripts descended from the western Greeks, taught the Romans how to write. The other Old Italic scripts have not survived in very large quantities due to the cultural hegemony of the Roman state, and the Etruscan language is largely extinct.

WRITING DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

Roman rule in Western Europe fell apart, and the Persian Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire became the main centers of literary development. Latin, which was never a major literary language, lost prominence quickly (except within the Roman Catholic Church). Greek and Persian were the two main literary languages, but Syriac and Coptic were also significant.

Arabic quickly became a significant literary language in the area as a result of the development of Islam in the 7th century. Greek's status as a scholarly language soon lost ground to Arabic and Persian. The Turkish and Persian languages now use Arabic script as their principal writing system. The development of the cursive scripts for Greek, the Slavic languages, Latin, and other languages was also greatly inspired by this script.

The Hindu-Arabic numeral system was also extended throughout Europe thanks to the Arabic language. The modern Spanish city of Cordoba had emerged as one of the world's leading intellectual hubs by the start of the second millennium and was home to the largest library at the time. Its location at the meeting point of the Islamic and Western Christian worlds encouraged intellectual growth and written exchange between the two cultures.

THE MODERN ERA AND THE RENAISSANCE

By the 14th century, Western Europe had experienced a renaissance, which had temporarily increased the significance of Greek while slowly restoring Latin's status as an important literary language. In Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, a comparable but smaller emergence took place. As the Islamic Golden Era came to an end, Arabic and Persian also started to slowly lose ground. In order to codify the phonologies of the various languages, the Latin alphabet underwent several alterations as a result of the rebirth of literary development in Western Europe.

Writing has undergone steady change throughout history, in large part because of the emergence of new technologies. Technology advancements such as the printing press, computer, mobile phone, and pen have all changed how and what is written as well as the medium in which it is generated. Characters can now be generated with a button press rather than a hand motion, especially with the development of digital technology like the computer and the smartphone.

Ancient Coin Discovery With An Astronomical Mystery

What does the ancient coin found recently off the shores of Israel depict?

You never know what discoveries are waiting to be found in old records or artwork. A recent archaeological find sent us down just such an astronomical rabbit-hole, leading us to ideas that are fun and interesting to consider.

It all started with the recent amazing discovery of the ancient Roman coin off the coast of Haifa, Israel in the Mediterranean Sea. The bronze coin depicts the zodiac sign of Cancer, along with the Moon goddess Selene and crescent Moon. The ancient coin would have been part of a set of twelve, depicting the houses of the zodiac. The coin was recovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Maritime Archaeology Unit.

“This is the first time such a coin has been discovered off Israel’s coast,” says Director of the Maritime Archaeology Unit Jacob Sharvit in a recent press release. “It (the coin) is a rare addition to the National Treasures collection.”

The ancient coin was found as part of a horde from a presumed ancient shipwreck. From the inscription on the obverse, researchers know that the coin was minted in Alexandria, Egypt during year eight of the reign of Roman emperor Antonius Pius, which would translate to 144-145 AD.

Now, I noticed something intriguing on the image, and did some brief research.

The ancient coin also shows a bright ‘star’ near the Moon. I began to wonder if this depicted a real astronomical event, visible from the Mediterranean region in the years before the coin was minted. Now, no bright star exists in Cancer; I therefore suspected it was actually a bright planet, say, Jupiter or Venus. I did a search using the Occult 4.2 program and the planetarium program Stellarium (which takes in to account the ~26,000 year precession of the equinoxes and stellar proper motion over the centuries), and found one event that was especially intriguing: the dusk conjunction of the waxing crescent Moon and Jupiter on the evening of June 4th 140 CE… in the sign of Cancer.

Dusk looking west from the Mediterranean region on the evening of June 4th, 140 AD. Credit: Stellarium

Not only did this occur in the reign of Antoninus Pius, but it would have been visible right before the death of his beloved wife Faustina the Elder in late 140 AD… perhaps the ancient coin commemorates her passing? Certainly there’s record of Pius’s devotion to Faustina, and his subsequent campaign to deify Faustina after her death.

The Moon occults Jupiter on June 4th, 140 CE. Credit: Occult 4.2.

Of course, the modern science of astronomy has its hoary roots in the archaic practice of astrology. Ancients watched the sky, noted what they saw and assigned import to them versus human and terrestrial affairs. We all remember the astrologer’s admonition to Julius Caesar to ‘beware the Ides of March,’ and astronomical historians from Kepler and Newton onward have gone broke trying to link the ‘star’ that guided astrologers to Bethlehem with a true astronomical phenomenon.

Under one possible scenario, a court astrologer could have assigned significance to the conjunction of Jupiter with the Moon in Cancer, a portent that later moved a grieving Pius to commemorate the death of his wife, casting her as the Moon goddess Selene.

The base of the column of Antoninus Pius in Rome, depicting Pius and Faustina. Credit: Saiko/Wikimedia Commons 3.0 license.

I ran this idea past fellow amateur astronomer John Flannery, and he had some interesting ideas. He noted that while it’s tempting to assert that the dots on the shell of the Crab depict the open cluster Praesepe (Messier 44), Steve O’Meara also notes in a past Sky & Telescope column that individual stars in the cluster would be hard to discern with the naked eye.

Flannery also pointed me toward another interesting possibility for the mystery star: the 141 CE apparition of Halley’s comet. I ran a simulation using data from NASA/JPL/Horizons, and 1P/Halley would have been at Right Ascension 9 hours, 13’ 12’, Declination +24º 10’ on April 28th, 141 CE in the adjacent constellation of Leo the Lion shinning at +1st magnitude while the Moon was in Cancer at dusk.

Halley’s Comet in late April, 141 C.E. Credit: Stellarium.

“In astrology, the Moon rules the sign of Cancer,” says Flannery. “Regardless of what the coins depict, I think it is an extraordinarily beautiful set (referring to the twelve coin zodiac set) and shows delicate workmanship.”

We may never know for sure. What could prove or refute the assertion is the discovery of earlier (pre-second century) coins, with the same Moon-star Moon goddess inscription.

Beyond just being a fun astronomical mystery, such depictions of astronomical events in art, text or ancient coins are important in pinpointing dates and events in the past. For example, one recent ancient Chinese text may have chronicled the earliest depiction of aurora, and another text may note a sunset annular eclipse alluded to in the Book of Joshua.

In any event, this is all speculative, but it’s fun to consider. In regards to astrology, Shakespeare said it best: “The fault… is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Dawn looking east on the morning of September 8th, 2026. Credit: Stellarium.

In the meantime, you can enjoy another such tryst of the crescent Moon, Jupiter in Cancer at dawn on the morning of September 8th, 2026, followed by a fine occultation of the king of the planets for North America on the next lunar cycle on October 6th, 2026. Be sure to watch if skies are clear as the celestial drama unfolds in the dawn, and wonder just what folks might have seen in the sky, nearly two millennia ago.

Occultation path for the October 6th, 2026 event. Credit: Occult 4.2.

Lead image credit: Roman coin recently discovered off of the coast of Haifa, Israel. Credit: Danfa Gazit/Israel Antiquities Authority.

Khaled al-Asaad, A Modern Martyr of Culture

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BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR GROUP

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Khaled al-Assad was the heroic Syrian archaeologist who was tortured and publicly beheaded by Islamic State extremists on August 18, 2015, for refusing to give up the hidden treasures of Palmyra.

The Syrian Archaeologist was director for 40 years of the Archaeological site and the Museum of Palmyra and for many decades the head of the site's excavations. On August 18, 2015, he was brutally murdered by public beheading because he refused to reveal where he had hidden archaeological findings in order to protect them from jihadists.

His mutilated body was first hung on a street lamp and then on a Greco-Roman column of the ancient city, with a sign "Director of Idolatry", which listed the "crimes" of his work: "apostasy", the representation of his country in "conferences of infidels" and his talks with "heretical Iran". His head was placed on the ground directly below his mutilated body, where he ironically put on his characteristic glasses in order to mock his "sanity".

In the weeks that followed the murder, IS destroyed several iconic parts of Palmyra from the 1st and 2nd centuries that were considered ‘idolatrous’.

Khaled Asaad's body was one of three corpses found near the ancient city of Palmyra, according to official media, four years after it was recaptured from ISIS by Syrian government forces. A friend of Asaad, antiquities official Maamoun Abdulkarim, said the 82-year-old had refused to leave Palmyra even once the militants closed in.

'I was born in Palmyra and will stay in Palmyra and will not leave even if costs me my blood,' Asaad is said to have replied.

The murder and desecration of the dead body of such a great and world-renowned scientist is a bad omen for the future of humanity and especially for the scientific field of culture. We must understand that even in the 21st century, nothing is taken for granted when it comes to the protection of antiquities and the world’s cultural heritage.

We all have a responsibility to protect historic sites as a public benefit that is integrally connected to the fundamental goals of free nations and all humanity in the uncertain, nihilistic violence, and widespread ignorance of the modern day.

Their destruction, the erasure of classics and other works, the exclusion of the younger generation from historical knowledge—all done so under the guise of a fabricated religious cohesion, a phony "social peace," an absolute "politically correct rationality," and new definitions of "purity"—represent a new form of extremism that today threatens the foundations and principles of civilization as we know it, as well as the enduring contributions of various cultures to it.

As members of the cultural community, we honor a great scientist and, more importantly, a brave man who stood his ground against the withering missionaries. Khalid al-Assad is a contemporary cultural martyr. Let his sacrifice serve as a constant example and a beacon amid the darkness of all forms of nihilism, geostrategic games, fanaticism in religion, and moral and spiritual decay.

A Greek-language 'Bloody' Curse Inscription Against Robbers Found in Galilee, Israel

BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR TEAM

A convert to Judaism warned away tomb raiders by vowing to curse in Greek anyone who would dare to open his grave.

Dated back to the 2nd or 3rd century AD (late Roman or early Byzantine periods), this painted, bloody-looking burial curse inscription was found in a tomb in the Beit She'arim Necropolis of Lower Galilee in Israel.  The full text and the story of its discovery were presented at the Northern Conference, held jointly on June 1, 2022, by the University of Haifa and the northern region of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Though the Beit She’arim necropolis had been extensively studied, the catacomb in which Jacob had been buried had been unknown until last year. This curse was the first inscription archaeologists have found in Beit She’arim for 65 years!

Necropolis of Bet She’arim, Catacomb 20, Copyright: © Tsvika Tsuk

Beit She'arim site

Beit She'arim, located in the Lower Galilee, was a central Jewish settlement during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, in the 2nd to 5th centuries CE. The Jewish Sanhedrin Council moved there after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Jewish Sanhedrin Council moved there, and it became an important center of Jewish learning and culture.

Inside the innermost chamber, the researchers discovered two inscriptions written in Greek in red paint. Both were deciphered by Jonathan Price, professor of ancient history at Tel Aviv University. The small one was found on the limestone wall near a burial lodge with the name "Judah" on it, who archaeologists believe was the owner of the tomb. The larger inscription, found on a stone slab leaning against the opening of the same alcove, consisted of eight lines warning people to stay away from Jacob/Yaakov ‘the Convert’s’ (Koine Greek: C ΠΡΟCΗΛΥΤΟC) tomb and let the deceased rest in peace.

It was specifically written to deter grave robbers, and as such, it says:

“Jacob the Proselyte vows to curse anybody who would open this grave, so nobody will open it.” “He was 60.”

The last three words of the curse were written in a different script, and the researchers believe that they may have been written after his death by someone else (possibly relatives), following his demise.

An emblem of a menorah carved in the stone, inside a structure at Beit She'arim National Park, an archaeological site in the Lower Galilee. (Doron Horowitz/Flash90)

Why Proselyte?

This title means that he converted to Judaism, perhaps from Christianity or another pagan cult of the time, such as those of Isis or Mithras that thrived in the Late Roman period. At this period, we know that people were desperately seeking life's meaning in different philosophical movements, cults, or religions of the united Roman world.

The Christian faith was growing stronger; however, there are indications that many people in the area also chose to join the Jewish religion. Jerusalem, for instance, is littered with remnants from the burials of converts to Judaism during the second and third centuries AD.

However, converting to Judaism is difficult and involves many serious life changes. After studying Jewish law, converts not only have to heartily accept and be sincerely devoted to the Jewish faith, but they also become members of the Jewish People, and they must embrace the totality of Jewish history and culture.

Greek-speaking areas during the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 BC) Dark blue: areas where Greek speakers probably were a majority Light blue: areas that were Hellenized. Wikipedia.

Why in Greek?

Greek, specifically Koine Greek (Common Greek) served as a lingua franca of the time. Also known as Alexandrian dialect, common Attic, Hellenistic, or Biblical Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire.

It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and was the language commonly spoken in much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries, including Roman-period Palestine. It was based mainly on Attic and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through dialect levelling with other varieties.

The excavation of the Beit She’arim ancient necropolis began 80 years ago. The burial inscriptions that were found belong to Jews and are written in various languages, but mostly Greek.

The Very First Alphabet Scripts of Eastern Mediterranean and Europe: Phoenician - Euboean - Etruscan

Script is any particular system of writing or the written means of human communication. Is also a kind of early human technology, a basic form of communication, which began simply as lists of goods, evolved into a more sophisticated means of conveying thoughts and feelings and this, in time, became the script in which the literature of the culture was set down.

The Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region.

The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of the pictographic Proto- or Old Canaanite script, into a linear, alphabetic script, also marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script. Its immediate predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or early West Semitic alphabet, used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age first in Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully matured alphabet, thought to be derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

"Phoenician proper" consists of 22 consonant letters only, leaving vowel sounds implicit – in other words, it is an abjad – although certain late varieties use matres lectionis for some vowels. As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, they are mostly angular and straight, although cursive versions steadily gained popularity, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written right to left, though some texts alternate directions (boustrophedon).

Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet thrived, including Greek, Old Italic and Anatolian scripts. The alphabet's attractive innovation was its phonetic nature, in which one sound was represented by one symbol, which meant only a few dozen symbols to learn. The other scripts of the time, cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, employed many complex characters and required long professional training to achieve proficiency; which had restricted literacy to a small elite.

Another reason for its success was the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants, which spread the alphabet into parts of North Africa and Southern Europe. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day Lebanon) and Carthage in North Africa. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt.

The alphabet had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. Its simplicity not only allowed its easy adaptation to multiple languages, but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. This upset the long-standing status of literacy as an exclusive achievement of royal and religious elites, scribes who used their monopoly on information to control the common population.

The Euboean alphabet

The Euboean alphabet was a western variant of the early Greek alphabet, used between the 8th to 5th centuries BC. It was used in the island of Euboea (notably the cities of Eretria and Chalkis) and in related colonies in southern Italy, notably in Cumae and in Pithikoussai. It was through this variant that the Greek alphabet was transmitted to Italy, giving rise to the Old Italic alphabets, including Etruscan, and ultimately the Latin alphabet. Some of the distinctive features of the Latin as compared to the standard Greek script are already present in the Euboean model. In Greece, this and other local variants were replaced by the standard Greek alphabet, which is based on eastern Ionic Greek variants, from the 4th century BC.

Euboean alphabet tended to use certain variant forms of the standard letters, several of which also foreshadow the forms adopted by the Italic scripts. Γ was written like a (rounded or pointed) Latin C. Δ was written with the left edge vertical and the other two sides oblique, like a pointed Latin D. Λ was often written more like a Latin L, with a rightward hook at the bottom. Π was often written with a rounded top, approaching the shape of Latin P (but without the curve touching the vertical stem in the middle). Ρ, in turn, often had a downward tail, resembling Latin R.

The Marsiliana abecedarium (ca. 700 BC) shows an archaic variant of the Etruscan alphabet practically identical to the Western Greek alphabet, except for the presence of a Ξ or Samek.

Apart from the omission of samek (Ξ) and the addition of ΥΧΦΨ, the alphabet is identical to the Phoenician alphabet.

The Etruscan alphabet

The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.

The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet used in the Greek colonies in southern Italy which belonged to the "western" ("red") type, the so-called Western Greek alphabet. Several Old Italic scripts, including the Latin alphabet, derived from it (or simultaneously with it).

The Etruscan alphabet originated as an adaptation of the Euboean alphabet used by the Euboean Greeks in their first colonies in Italy, the island of Pithekoussai and the city of Cumae in Campania. In the alphabets of the West, X had the sound value [ks], Ψ stood for [kʰ]; in Etruscan: X = [s], Ψ = [kʰ] or [kχ] (Rix 202–209).

The earliest known Etruscan abecedarium is inscribed on the frame of a wax tablet in ivory, measuring 8.8×5 cm, found at Marsiliana (near Grosseto, Tuscany). It dates from about 700 BC, and lists 26 letters corresponding to contemporary forms of the Greek alphabet, including digamma, san and qoppa, but not omega which had still not been added at the time.

The shapes of the Archaic Etruscan and Neo-Etruscan letters had a few variants, used in different places and/or in different epochs. Notably, opposite letters were used for /s/ and /ʃ/ depending on the locality. Shown above are the glyphs from the Unicode Old Italic block, whose appearance will depend on the font used by the browser. These are oriented as they would be in lines written from left to right. Also shown are SVG images of variants shown as they would be written right to left, as in most of the actual inscriptions.

Pottery Shard May Show Missing Link to First Written Alphabet

By Patricia Claus

Early writing found on a 3,500-year-old pottery shard in Israel may represent the “missing link” in the development of the first alphabet, according to researchers who published their findings recently in Smithsonian magazine.

The inscription, which has been under study since it was first unearthed in 2018, makes researchers think that it means that a standardized script — essential in any true alphabet — arrived in Canaan earlier than previously thought.

The letters used resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs – but they are not true hieroglyphs.

The letters are now believed to be the very oldest writing ever recorded in the ancient land of Israel, forming the basis of writing systems that developed later in time.

Pottery shard showing early alphabetic language, found at Tel Lachish, Israel. Credit: Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

A report from the Jerusalem Post states that archaeologists unearthed the fragment as part of excavations that were undertaken at Tel Lachish in south-central Israel in 2018. The Tel Lachish archaeological site was once home to a large Canaanite city.

They were able to date the pottery shard using radiocarbon dating of grains of barley found alongside it, pinpointing its origin back to 1450 B.C., when the area was a center of Canaanite society. The archaeologists published their findings in the journal Antiquity.

Only six letters on two lines, the writing was inscribed millennia ago on the soft surface of a clay pot. Haggai Misgav, an epigraphist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who was a co-author of the study, told interviewers from Haaretz, she believes that the first three letters spell out the word “ebed,” meaning “slave” or “servant.”

Oddly, the inscription was most likely part of a person’s name. According to archaeologists, a popular naming convention in ancient times combined “servant” with the name of a local god to show  the person’s devotion to that deity.

The second line on the shard is believed to be the word “nophet,” meaning “nectar” or “honey.”

Tel Lachish front gate in Israel. Tel Lachish may be the area where the first written alphabet may have developed. Credit: Wilson44691 / CC BY-SA 3.0

Missing link may connect Egyptian alphabetic inscriptions to later Canaanite writing

Because the text is short and incomplete, researchers have not yet definitively determined what the inscription says for certain. At this time it is also unknown whether the writing was meant to be read from left to right or right to left.

The researchers believe that the script represents a “missing link” connecting alphabetic inscriptions already discovered in Egypt and the Sinai peninsula with later writing originating from Canaan.

The writing uses an early version of the alphabet in which letters resemble the Egyptian hieroglyphs from which they evolved.

The new discovery appears to disprove a previous hypothesis which held that the alphabet only came to Canaan after Egypt came to rule the area.

Tel Lachish, Israel. Credit: Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Lead author Felix Höflmayer, an archaeologist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, told interviewers from the Jerusalem Post “In the Late Bronze Age, between 1550 and 1200 B.C., the region was under the Egyptian empire.

“The Egyptians imposed their administrative system and their own writing and many experts thought that the early alphabet might have been introduced in this context; but now we can see that it was already in use at least by the 15th century B.C., when there was not such a large-scale Egyptian domination.”

Because of its abundant water sources and fertile earth, early Canaanites flocked to the Tel Lachish area and a large city flourished there for much of ancient history, according to information from the Jewish Virtual Library.

The Canaanites established a fortified citadel there in approximately 2000 B.C. After a fire destroyed the city sometime around the end of the 12th century B.C., the area was rebuilt as an Israelite fortress-city which was part of the Kingdom of Judah.

Unfortunately, Tel Lachish was destroyed once again in an Assyrian attack in the year 701 B.C. Well-known to have been an important site since time immemorial, archaeologists have been digging there since the 1930s.

Benjamin Sass, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University who was not involved in the excavation and subsequent study of the shard, told interviewers that dating the barley discovered alongside the pottery fragment may not have pointed to an accurate date for the inscription itself, since the grain might have been harvested after the vessel was created.

“The data published so far makes (the team’s timeline) a possibility, but by no means a certainty,” he notes in an article in Live Science. 

Researchers already know for certain that the writing used by Canaanites eventually split into the alphabet that ancient Israelites employed to write the Hebrew Bible and another version of an alphabet used by Phoenicians.

After the collapse of the Bronze Age, around 1200 BC, alphabetic writing advanced and developed further, since the major powers around the Mediterranean collapsed, spurring small city-states to use their own, local languages more and more.

According to Lydia Wilson, who had written on the development of early languages in an earlier article in Smithsonian, variations of the alphabet that was used in Canaan therefore spread from what is now Turkey all the way to Spain — eventually going birth to the Latin alphabet used in western languages today.

Höflmayer told the Jerusalem Post “All alphabets have somewhat evolved from hieroglyphs, the Phoenician one, the Hebrew one, the Greek one, the Latin one and so on.

“Now we know that the alphabet was not brought to the Levant by Egyptian rule. Although we cannot really explain yet how it happened, we can say that it was much earlier and under different social circumstances.”

Ancient Jericho: The First Walled City In History

Jericho, Arabic Arīḥā, town located in the West Bank. Jericho is one of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, dating perhaps from about 9000 BC. Archaeological excavations have demonstrated Jericho’s lengthy history. The city’s site is of great archaeological importance; it provides evidence of the first development of permanent settlements and thus of the first steps toward civilization.Traces have been found of visits of Mesolithic hunters, carbon-dated to about 9000 BC, and of a long period of settlement by their descendants. By about 8000 BC the inhabitants had grown into an organized community capable of building a massive stone wall around the settlement, strengthened at one point at least by a massive stone tower. The size of this settlement justifies the use of the term town and suggests a population of some 2,000–3,000 persons. Thus, this 1,000 years had seen movement from a hunting way of life to full settlement. The development of agriculture can be inferred from this, and grains of cultivated types of wheat and barley have been found. Jericho is thus one of the places providing evidence of very early agriculture. It is highly probable that, to provide enough land for cultivation, irrigation had been invented. This first Neolithic culture of Palestine was a purely indigenous development.

Walls of Jericho

These occupants were succeeded about 7000 BC by a second group, bringing a culture that was still Neolithic and still not manufacturing pottery, though it was not indigenous. This occupation probably indicates the arrival of newcomers from one of the other centres, possibly in northern Syria, in which the Neolithic way of life based on agriculture had developed. This second Neolithic stage ended about 6000 BC. For the next 1,000 years there is little evidence of occupation at Jericho. Only about 5000 BC did Jericho show the influences of developments that had been taking place in the north, where an ever-increasing number of villages had appeared, still Neolithic but marked by the use of pottery. The first pottery users of Jericho were, however, primitive compared with their predecessors on the site, living in simple huts sunk in the ground. They were probably mainly pastoralists. Over the next 2,000 years, occupation was sparse and possibly intermittent.

Aerial view of ancient Jericho.

At the end of the 4th millennium BC, an urban culture once more appeared in Jericho, as in the rest of Palestine. Jericho became a walled town again, with its walls many times rebuilt.About 2300 BC there was once more a break in urban life. The nomadic newcomers, consisting of a number of different groups, were probably the Amorites. Their successors, about 1900 BC, were the Canaanites, sharing a culture found the whole length of the Mediterranean littoral. The Canaanites reintroduced town life, and excavations have provided evidence both of their houses and of their domestic furniture, which was found in their tombs as equipment of the dead in the afterlife. These discoveries have indicated the nature of the culture that the Israelites found when they infiltrated into Canaan and that they largely adopted.

3D reconstruction of Ancient Jericho

Jericho is famous in biblical history as the first town attacked by the Israelites under Joshua after they crossed the Jordan River (Joshua 6). After its destruction by the Israelites it was, according to the biblical account, abandoned until Hiel the Bethelite established himself there in the 9th century BC (1 Kings 16:34). Jericho is mentioned several other times in the Bible. Herod the Great established a winter residence at Jericho, and he died there in 4 BC. Excavations conducted in 1950–51 revealed something of Herodian Jericho: a magnificent façade along the Wadi Al-Qilṭ is probably part of Herod’s palace, and its style illustrates Herod’s devotion to Rome. Traces of other fine buildings can be seen in this area, which became the centre of Roman and New Testament Jericho, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) south of that of the Old Testament town. Jericho of the Crusader period was on yet a third site, a mile east of the Old Testament site, and it was there that the modern town would later develop.

14th century map of Jericho in Farchi Bible

WRITTEN BY Kathleen Mary Kenyon Principal, St. Hugh's College, University of Oxford, 1962–73. Director, British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1951–66. Author of Archaeology in the Holy Land; Digging Up Jericho; and others.

Tower of Jericho: One Of The Earliest Stone Monuments Of Humanity

An ancient tower at the archaeological site of Tel Jericho was built to exploit the primeval fears of Jericho's residents, according to new findings.

"We believe this tower was one of the mechanisms to motivate people to take part in a communal lifestyle," one archeologist says.

Discovered by archaeologists in 1952, a 28-foot-high stone tower discovered on the edge of the town of Jericho has puzzled scientists ever since. Now, eleven millennia after it was built, Tel Aviv University archaeologists at the ancient site Tel Jericho are revealing new facts about the "world's first skyscraper."

The Tower of Jericho is an 8.5-metre-tall (28 ft) stone structure, built in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period around 8000 BC. It is considered as one of the earliest stone monuments of humanity.

The Wall of Jericho was discovered by John Garstang during the excavations of 1930 to 1936, which he suggested were those described in the Book of Joshua in the Bible and dated to around 1400 BC. Kathleen Kenyon discovered the tower built against the wall inside the town during excavations between 1952 and 1958, in trench I. Kenyon provided evidence that both constructions dated much earlier, to the Neolithic, which is the latest part of the Stone Age, and were part of an early proto-city. The tower highlights the importance of Jericho for the understanding of settlement patterns in the Sultanian period in the southern Levant.

The tower was constructed using undressed stones, with an internal staircase of twenty-two steps. Conical in shape, the tower is almost 9 metres (30 ft) in diameter at the base, decreasing to 7 metres (23 ft) at the top with walls approximately 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) thick. The construction of the tower is estimated to have taken 11,000 working days.

Recent studies by Ran Barkai and Roy Liran from Tel Aviv University have suggested astronomical and social purposes in the construction of the tower. Showing an early example of archaeoastronomy, they used computer modelling to determine that the shadow of nearby mountains first hit the tower on the sunset of the summer solstice and then spread across the entire town. Noting that there were no known invasions of the area at the time of construction, the defensive purpose of the tower, wall and ditch at Jericho has been brought into question. No burials were found and suggestions of it being a tomb have been dismissed.

Discussing in The Jerusalem Post, Barkai argued that the structure was used to create awe and inspiration to convince people into a harder way of life with the development of agriculture and social hierarchies. He concluded: "We believe this tower was one of the mechanisms to motivate people to take part in a communal lifestyle."

A stairway (and tower) to Heaven

"Reconstruction of the sunset revealed to us that the shadow of the hill as the sun sets on the longest day of the year falls exactly on the Jericho tower, envelops the tower and then covers the entire village," the researchers explained. "For this reason, we suggest that the tower served as an earthly element connecting the residents of the site with the hills around them and with the heavenly element of the setting sun." Its construction may be related to the primeval fears and cosmological beliefs of the villagers, they note.

Tel Jericho, located in modern day Jericho in the West Bank, is one of the most ancient sites in the world. The eight and half meter tower, which was built with a steep flight of stairs approximately one meter wide, rises above a four-meter wall that probably encompassed the city. The existence of the tower led to Jericho's identification as the first city in the world, even though it was in fact a settlement of pre-agricultural hunter gatherers.

"This was a time when hierarchy began and leadership was established," Dr. Barkai told the Jerusalem Post. "We believe this tower was one of the mechanisms to motivate people to take part in a communal lifestyle."

The undressed stone tower, placed in the centre of the west side of the tell, contained an internal staircase with 22 stone steps.

These stair steps are the first known staircase up to the top, made by flat cut blocks of limestone. The high quality of masonry work clearly shows that this was the work of a new people, with a long tradition in stone masonry.

Debunking old theories

Some researchers have proposed that the tower and wall together comprised a system of fortification and a defense against flooding. Others have suggested the tower and wall as a geographical marker, defining the territory of the early residents of Jericho, and a symbol of the wealth and power of the ancient village.

In a 2008 article, the Tel Aviv University researchers proposed that the tower and wall of Jericho should be seen as cosmological markers, connecting the ancient village of Jericho with the nearby Mount Qarantal and sunset on the longest day of the year. The new paper fortifies their hypothesis.

This idea is based on the fact that the axis of the flight of stairs in the tower was built at a precise angle to the setting of the sun on the longest day of the year behind the highest peak overlooking Jericho, Mount Qarantal. They believe that it is humanity's first skyscraper, however small, and also the world's first public building.

Story Source: Materials provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference: Roy Liran and Ran Barkai. Casting a shadow on Neolithic Jericho. Antiquity, Volume 85, Issue 327, March 2011 [abstract]

Madain Project

Neolithic Cat Burial in Cyprus: The oldest known evidence of taming of cats!

The bones of a cat were found near human bones in a grave uncovered in Cyprus, dating from 7,500 to 7,000 years B.C., during excavations carried out under the supervision of Jean Guilaine of the Collège de France. Jean-Denis Vigne, CNRS research director, showed that this was the oldest known evidence of the taming of cats.

It is generally taken for granted that cat domestication began in Egypt, with the first clear evidence dating from 2,000 years B.C. French researchers writing in Science magazine show that the process actually began much earlier than that. The evidence comes from the Neolithic, or late stone age, village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, which was inhabited from the 9th to the 8th millennia BC.

The cat is buried together with its "master", 3D reconstruction of the Early Aceramic Neolithic grave of Shillourokambos.

At the end of the 1980’s, the discovery of the jawbone of a cat on the island of Cyprus, at Khirokitia, in sediment from the Neolithic Age dating from more than 6,000 years B.C., had already suggested that the domestication of this species could have begun earlier and elsewhere than in Egypt.  The distance of the island of Cyprus from the continent and the absence of a local feline species during the Neolithic Age clearly implied that Neolithic populations had voluntarily introduced the animal to the island. 

Digs at the site of Shillourokambos, led by Jean Guilaine under the direction of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and the French School of Athens, have recently unearthed a burial site in which a cat and a human are associated.  It dates from 7,500 to 7,000 B.C. Not only is it older by almost one thousand years than the first evidence of the presence of the cat in Cyprus, but it leaves no doubt as to the existence of a strong association between humans and cats as of that time, at least at the symbolic level. The cat buried with the human was approximately eight months old and had almost reached its adult size.  The morphology of the skeleton suggests that it was a big cat, similar to wild cats found in the Near East today. The morphological modifications of the skeleton associated with domestication are not yet visible, justifying the use of the term “tamed”, rather than “domesticated”.

“This particular relationship between humans and cats could have begun at the very beginning of agriculture, when cats were attracted into the villages because mice came to eat the stored grain”, explains Jean-Denis Vigne.

The complete body of the animal was buried in a small pit at about twenty centimeters from the human grave. The tomb, particularly rich in offerings in comparison to other graves known from this period in Cyprus, suggests that the individual had a special social status. Τhis grave certainly bears witness to relationships between humans and cats in the 8th millennium B.C., not restricted to the material benefit of humans but also involved in spiritual links.

Photo of the discovery.

Domestication and taming 

Archaeozoologists generally use the word domestication when they have good evidence for morphological modifications such as the decrease of the general size or the shortening of the face and tooth raw. However, morphological modifications may not appear for some considerable time after the original association with man. We use the term ‘taming’ for the early history of the domestic cat when no morphological modification is visible. In addition this term, which has also been used by Malek for the same stage of domestication, fits well the status of cat as an ‘exploiting captive’. Cultural situation of Shillourokambos. The cultural characters of the late 9th millennium Shillourokambos archaeological assemblages are very similar to those of the mainland for the same period. Indeed, it has now been established that Cyprus was settled by Neolithic farmers from the continent who brought with them both crops and herds.

Brief description of the human burial 

The sub-circular (55 x 60 cm) grave was situated in the upper part of the archaeological deposits, just under the 25/30 cm thick arable ploughed earth. It had been dug into the remains of a mud building which dates to the middle phase of the occupation of Shillourokambos. It contained the complete skeleton in primary position of a human of 30 years of age or older; the body, which had partly collapsed during decomposition, had probably been buried in a bag, in a semi-sitting position, facing West; the arms were crossed against the chest and his legs completely folded. The list of the ten ceremonial items is as follows: a marine shell, a stone pendant, a very uncommon discoid flint scraper, two small polished axes (one of them broken), a pumice stone, a fragment of ochre, a large flint piercing tool, and several non-retouched flint blades and bladelets. This is the only burial with such a high number of offerings for the whole Preceramic and Aceramic Neolithic in Cyprus.

Description of the cat grave and skeleton 

The grave was oval (43 x 25 cm) and ca. 15cm deep. It was dug into and filled with the same archaeological layer as the human burial, at the same level and 20 cm away from its southeastern edge. A small asymmetric mound of sediment all along the North edge of the grave was probably composed of the packed down-products of the excavation of the grave, attesting man-made excavation. The cat skeleton was complete, except the last lumbar vertebra, sacrum, pelvis, possible baculum, tail bones and a few elements of the limb extremities. The missing parts were all situated at the highest level, suggesting that the complete body had been buried and that the uppermost parts were destroyed by ploughing; the skeleton laid on its left side, the head to the West and the back to the South, i.e., in the same orientation as that of the human skeleton; the head was bent backwards in relation to the neck; fore and rear limbs were grouped under the stomach, respectively backwards and forwards stretched, but the removal of the limb extremities precludes any explanation to this peculiar arrangement. The finds have been withdrawn as a block, for laboratory excavation and casting. The entire skeleton was articulated, a small amount of movement to the anatomical arrangement being due to collapse during the decomposition process. There is no indication about the origin of the death. Microscopic examination did not reveal any cut or burn marks. The absence of significant quantities of sediments between the right and left rib series indicates that the thoracic cavity had not been opened before the burial.

Though severely damaged, the skull was sufficiently well preserved to allow a good determination of the species among the different small felids of Western Asia, according to the morphological criteria which allow clear-cut distinctions between them. Lengths of the limbs long bones are much larger than the ones of historical and present-day domestic cats

(Source: “Early taming of the cat in Cyprus”, by J.-D. Vigne, J. Guilaine, K. Debue, L. Haye & P. Gérard)

3D reconstruction of Shillourokambos site.

The 'Jericho Skulls' - Decoration in Burial Practices 9,000 years ago!

About 9,000 years ago this human skull was covered with plaster and the eye-sockets inlaid with cowrie shells, perhaps to represent the dead individual. This is how the archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon interpreted the skull when she excavated it along with a group of six others at Jericho in 1953. If correct, it would make this the oldest portrait in the Ashmolean Museum.

The skull belonged to an adult male and shows evidence of being artificially shaped (possibly by wrapping cloth around his head when an infant); he may have been identified as somebody special from this early age. We don’t know how he died but the removal of the skull may have been carried out after the flesh and sinews had decayed. Plaster was carefully modelled over the front of the skull but does not extend over the back, which was perhaps originally provided with some other material to look like hair.

The plastered skull dates to around 7000 BC, a time when clay was helping to transform settled communities, including the creation of figurines of animals and humans as well as early forms of pottery. It was one way that they could remember their dead, perhaps helping to bring a community together through memories of their ancestors.

Plastered skull from Jericho, around 7000BC, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Jericho was founded around 9600 BCE and developed into a large settlement with a population of two thousand by about 7000 BCE. During the Neolithic period (abt 10000 BCE to 4500 BCE), the people of Jericho had a mortuary practice of burying loved ones under their houses. Sometimes these bodies were complete and sometimes the head was removed and only the skull was buried.

Before the head was buried, the skull was defleshed and the mandible was removed, then facial features were reconstructed with plaster. So that the plaster crania retained the identity of the family member, individual facial characteristics were painted on with red and black paint. In many cases the eye orbits were inlaid with shells and the crania were decorated with hair and mustaches.

Example of eye-sockets inlaid with cowrie shells.

Jericho skull at the British Museum. 

Israeli Archeologists Discover Dead Sea Scroll Fragments

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed two dozen Dead Sea scroll fragments from a remote cave in the Judean Desert, the first discovery of such Jewish religious texts in more than half a century. The Israel Antiquities Authority revealed on Tuesday that a four-year-long national excavation project, which was launched to prevent the looting of antiquities, had uncovered dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments. 

The scrolls contain verses from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, including Zechariah and Nahum, and are written in Greek — with the exception of God’s name in Hebrew.

The scroll fragments were recovered from what’s known as the Cave of Horror, where Jewish refugees are believed to have hidden during a failed uprising against the Roman Empire nearly 1,900 years ago. 

Earlier discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts of all but one book in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the earliest copy of the Ten Commandments. The ancient scrolls are mostly written on parchment and papyrus and are believed to date from the 3rd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. 

Of the most recent finds, Avi Cohen, CEO of the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, said they were “not just important to our own cultural heritage but to that of the entire world.”

“The scroll fragments containing biblical texts, the coins and the additional finds from the Second Temple Period that were found in this unique project directly attest to the Jewish heritage of the region and the inseparable bond between the Jewish cultural activities and our place in this land,” Cohen said.